News

COOPER: Burnside power plant working through EPA regulations

Category : News | Published : Thu Sep 29 2016 | Read : 400

Somerset Commonwealth Journal
estimated at 20 to 35 years at Cooper Station. But, without the costly regulations, coal-fire generating plants can be retrofitted and retrofitted and be viable for years on end, he noted.

According to Comer, at the time Campbell made this statement, the situation was " ... in a state of flux ... changing." The U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 9, 2016, stayed implementation of the Clean Power Plan pending judicial review. Final briefs are due in a federal appeals court in February 2017, Comer said.

Mosier was quoted in Kentucky Living as saying " ... one of the most important changes made in 2013 was joining PJM, a regional transmission organization. Being a member enables us on some days to buy power, mostly from natural gas sources, more eco! nomically than running our own coal-fired stations.

The city of Somerset, with its abundant supplies of natural gas, negotiated with EKPC about supplying Unit 1 at Cooper Station with natural gas. However, these negotiations apparently ceased when EKPC installed a $15 million ductwork project that takes emissions from Unit 1 to a newly installed scrubber on Unit 2 that has capacity to scrub emissions from both generating units. This allows emissions from the older generating unit to meet MATS (mercury and air toxic standards) set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency for coal-fired electric generating plants. A circulating dry scrubber was added in 2012 to Unit No. 2 at a cost of about $225 million.

Cooper Station has two coal-fired generating units. Unit No. 2, on line in October 1969, produces 225 megawatts of electricity. The plant’s first generating unit, on! line in February 1965, produces 116 megawatts of electricity.! The total 341 megawatts are enough to power homes in about 30 cities the size of Somerset. According to the latest information available, Cooper Station in 2013 burned 437,000 tons of coal, practically all of which came from Eastern Kentucky.